Progressive Financial Services, Inc.

See attached letter and enclosure.  Complaint filed in error against our company.

To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint filed by Mr. [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 13 March 2017. Mr. [redacted] is frustrated about the terms under which he is repaying his defaulted federally guaranteed student loan that was placed in our...

office for collections by the U.S. Department of Education (“ED”). He attributes the various rules/regulations that govern the repayment options which Progressive is bound to follow, to Progressive not being willing to negotiate terms more favorable for him. He claims that the intentional recalcitrance by Progressive is designed to force borrowers into administrative wage garnishment (“AWG”). He wants his money back that has been garnished over the past several years and wants to deal “directly” with the federal government. Promptly upon receipt, we located the relevant account. The account was placed with Progressive in October 2012 by ED. Progressive is bound by a host of conditions and guidelines that ED has in place regarding what programs and repayment means/methods (voluntary and involuntary) are available for Progressive to offer to a borrower in default. What this consumer is frustrated about and what he attributes as Progressive being purposefully uncooperative is,rather, Progressive following the rules imposed on the process by ED. A brief history of the account since it has been in our office is helpful to explain where the borrower currently is in the repayment process. After attempts to get the account into voluntary repayment arrangements were unsuccessful, Progressive located the consumer’s employer and verified that the borrower was currently employed. These are initial steps to prepare the file for ED to impose an involuntary administrative wage garnishment (AWG) order. Before doing so,however, the consumer was notified about ED’s intent to start involuntary AWG. A notice of proposed wage garnishment was mailed to the consumer’s address on file. That correspondence, dated 15 February 2013, gave the consumer notice that he had 30 days to get his account into qualifying voluntary arrangements and/or request a hearing (“RFH”) to“appeal” the decision to move forward with AWG. He failed to set up voluntary repayment arrangements, and his request for a hearing (appeal) was not timely (received 4.2.13). In the meantime, the AWG garnishment order was already in the pipeline, and on 18 April 2013, ED notified the consumer’s employer that they were to initiate wage garnishment to resolve the balance of the account. Following ED’s review of Mr. [redacted]’s RFH and his income/expense documentation, ED granted him a financial hardship and lowered his monthly garnishment amount due from$286.43/month to $179.06 per month. The consumer has been making those AWG payments(via weekly payroll deduction) since June 2013. In January 2015, the consumer contacted Progressive to ask about (1) his IRS Form 1098 for interest paid; and (2) why he was certified for offset by the federal government if he is making payments via AWG. Our staff told him that if the Treasury Offset Program has been notified that he has a debt (defaulted loan, for example)owed to the federal government, any federal benefit (including a tax refund) is subject to offset to repay the debt. Furthermore, he was told that offsets are typically authorized if the debt is in default – regardless of whether he is making voluntary or involuntary payments. The next substantive communication we had with the consumer was in earlier in March of this year. Two e-mails and their responses are attached to this response. During a phone call with the consumer on 8 March 2017, our agent explained to the consumer that he had to be out of default to stop offsets due to the defaulted student loan; and she explained that if he could get set up on a rehabilitation program and successfully complete the various steps, he could be out of default in 9-10 months. She explained, however, that any rehab payment (1) would have to be made on top of the garnishment payment – but that after 5 timely qualifying rehab payments, he would be eligible for the AWG to stop; and (2) that after completing the 9/10-month program,he would have a new loan and the old account would be out of default. She explained that to calculate the proper payment, she would need him to submit current financial information. ED requires that all such calculations be based on relatively new/current financial information. The information he supplied in 2002/2013 would not be current enough. While the agent was explaining this, the consumer hung up without getting details as to what he needed to submit or how to submit the information. Furthermore, during the call he had revoked permission for Progressive to call him on his cell phone, so Progressive has not been able to reach out to him by phone to finish the conversation. The program requirements to rehabilitate the loan are ED requirements; Progressive is simply following the rules that ED requires Progressive to follow. The ED staff in our office has asked that we encourage the consumer to call in again and to take the time to learn about what new information is needed for Progressive to calculate what the monthly rehab payment would be. Depending on a consumer’s financial information, ED can set qualifying monthly payments as low as $5/month. While we cannot say that Mr. [redacted]’s payments will be that low, we believe it would be to his benefit to submit the required information so the amount can be calculated. Nothing binds him to do the rehabilitation program after the calculation is complete, but at least he would know what the requirements would be. Again, though, since he has revoked our permission to call him, he must initiate the call and complete the steps needed for our staff to be able to calculate the qualifying payment and assist him to get (1) out of AWG status; and hopefully (2) out of default. In sum, Progressive has been following the particular guidelines that ED imposes in our dealings and communications with this consumer. Our staff has not been unethical as he alleges. We remain committed to assist Mr. [redacted] with his desire to get his loan out of default so that the garnishment and the federal offsets can be stopped. He needs to contact our office and supply the requested current financial information so that our staff can assist him in determining what the qualifying rehabilitation payments would be. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Dispute Resolution Consultant Revdex.com [redacted] 
[redacted] 
[redacted] 
[redacted] 
To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint...

regarding [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 4 March 2015. [redacted] claims he is being garnished for a debt that is not his. He states that he notified Progressive several months ago that he was not the correct person named on the account when we spoke with him by phone. My apologies for the delay in getting this response out – we have been trying to reach the consumer’s place of employment to re-verify that the account holder’s unique identifying information matches the employee against whom the wage garnishment order was issued. Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, Progressive located the relevant account. Contrary to his allegation, our records indicate that we have never called the number that [redacted] lists as his primary number (ending in [redacted]); nor are we showing any conversation with him or anyone else who shares the name of the borrower but who disavows the debt. Furthermore, when we contacted this consumer’s place of employment and asked for a person who could verify employment, that person confirmed that someone by that name worked for the company and she verified that the social security number (the full number we have on the account was queried) was indeed the same social security number that was assigned to the [redacted] who worked at that company. Based on that verification process, and having been unable to establish contact with [redacted] to set up voluntary repayment arrangements, Progressive concluded its administrative wage garnishment (AWG) checklist and notified our client, the U.S. Department of Education (“ED”) that the account was ready for garnishment. ED sent out a “notice prior” letter to the consumer at the end of December 2014. When that notice prior (advising the consumer about his right to seek a review/appeal of the AWG) did not result in any contact from the consumer, ED issued the AWG order to his employer. [redacted] had an ongoing obligation to keep the Department of Education appraised of his address and phone number. Apparently that did not happen because all of our attempts to reach him were made to a mailing address that is not his current address (based on his disclosure in the Revdex.com complaint). Nor did Progressive have his current phone number on the file (also provided in the Revdex.com complaint documentation). We believe, therefore, that the notice prior letter may not have reached him either. Progressive has started a process to give this consumer an opportunity to dispute the wage garnishment order. While we are trying to re-verify the data on the account against the employer’s data, we have also requested that ED allow the garnishment order to be temporarily suspended so that Mr. ___________________________________________________________________________...⇄ can reach out to our staff to speak to them by phone and try to sort this out. This will be a very limited opportunity (30-days) for this consumer to contact Progressive to discuss his account before the garnishment order is reinstated. He should call our AWG unit at [redacted] or [redacted] 
[redacted] are familiar with his file and can assist. Again, however, this consumer must take the initiative and make the call to discuss the account with our staff and do so at his earliest convenience. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, /s/ [redacted] Corporate Counsel

To Whom It May Concern: Writer’s Direct Line: ###-###-####Writer’s Direct Fax Line: ###-###-#### e-mail:  [redacted]@progressivefinancial.com I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding Mr. [redacted].  We received the complaint on/about 11 June 2015....

 Mr. [redacted] states that Progressive refuses to send him proof the debt and of property ownership.  He also alleges the agents have been “rude and disrespectful.” He maintains “they are scammers.”Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, Progressive located the relevant account belonging to this consumer. On the first call when we reached this consumer (27 May 2015), our agent tried to have the consumer update the address so that we could send verification of debt (VOD) that had been requested in the call. Mr. [redacted] refused and hung up on the agent.   When Mr. [redacted] called in a few days later (10 June 2015), he stated that he was not going to pay the debt and believed that it could not be collected because the violations had occurred nearly 10 years ago.  He initially said he would take care of the debt, but that he would not submit payment to Progressive.  Later in the call he refused to pay thedebt altogether, stating then that he had already paid it.Now that we have a good address for Mr. [redacted] (pulled from the Revdex.com complaint documentation), we are mailing to him under separate cover, VOD documentation and other information provided to us from the creditor, the State of Utah.  Mr. [redacted] can contact Progressive once he has received the documentation to make arrangements to resolve the account.We regret that this consumer’s experience with our staff was not what we strive for.  The collection manager for that unit has been advised of the complaint and asked to review the call details with her staff members. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.Sincerely,/s/[redacted], Esq. Corporate Counsel

To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint filed by Ms. [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 31 March 2017. Ms. [redacted] disputes information on her credit report and wants the trade line involving a debt owed to Cox Communication removed. She claims that...

the “open date” of January 23, 2107 is inaccurate since she has had Verizon for the past 2 years. Promptly upon receipt, we located the relevant account. We believe Ms. [redacted] is misreading the information on her credit report regarding the above-referenced debt. The“Date Opened” information is the date that the account was placed with Progressive for collection efforts. The “FCRA DOFD” is listed as 03.06.2015 – that is the “date of first delinquency” – when Cox first listed the account as delinquent. Ms. [redacted] disputed the debt via the credit bureaus (CBR), and Progressive received that dispute from the CBR on/about 21 March 2017. The form lists the due date for our response as 4-14-17 – under the FCRA, the data furnisher has 30 days from the date of the dispute to conduct a reasonable investigation and notify the consumer of the results of the investigation.Progressive is still within that window to finish our investigation and send the consumer information about her dispute. According to the notes on the account, our staff currently is working on pulling verification of debt (VOD) documentation regarding the balance on the account. We anticipate having those materials mailed out to her within the 30-day window noted above. In addition, we have marked the trade line as “disputed” on her credit report. While we are investigating the dispute, the account in our office is in a VOD hold – and collection efforts are suspended until we can mail out the VOD and provide her ample time to receive and review those materials. Once she has those materials, she may contact our staff if she has further questions or wishes to take care of the balance on the account. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Dispute Resolution Consultant [redacted] 
[redacted] 
[redacted] Re: Complaint # [redacted] Our Acct. No.[redacted] To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint...

regarding [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 19 November 2014. [redacted] states that she made a payment arrangement with Progressive but that now she is getting mail threatening garnishment of her wages regarding the underlying debt. She wants the garnishment process to stop and for the payment arrangement to be reinstated. Promptly upon receipt of this complaint, we located the relevant account. On/about 7 July of this year our staff made contact with [redacted]. During that call she gave the agents verbal estimates on her income. From those verbal representations, the agent told [redacted] that she was approved for a $9/month payment arrangement. The agent was very clear however, that the verbal representations needed to be backed up by pay stubs which [redacted] promised to send. The agent told [redacted] that if the income from the paperwork did not match up with the verbal representations, Progressive would need to make new payment arrangements with her based on the pay stubs. The agent reiterated that caveat no fewer than three (3) times during the call. A few days thereafter, the paystub information was sent to Progressive. As it turned out, the actual income from the paystubs was greater than what she had reported verbally. That fact dictated that new payment arrangements be set up based on the actual (not estimated) income – a payment that would be greater than the $9/month that had originally been established. Progressive made numerous attempts thereafter to reach [redacted] on the phone to arrange for an updated payment arrangement. [redacted] either did not answer the phone at all or refused to stay on the call long enough for our staff to make new payment arrangements. When [redacted] failed to set up new payment arrangements in a timely fashion, the remaining payments that had been set up on 7 July were deleted and the account fell into an “involuntary” status. The creditor on the account is permitted (as a guarantor of Federal funded student loans) to administratively garnish the consumer’s wages in order to satisfy the account. The consumer was notified of that intent and the employer’s payroll address was verified so that ________________________________________________________________________ ...⇄ wage garnishment order would be sent to the right address. Our records indicate that the notice prior letter was sent to the consumer on/about 13 November 2014 – many weeks after our staff started to try to get this consumer on the phone to set up new payment arrangements. She now has a limited time to resolve this logjam with new voluntary payment arrangements on the account based on her actual income (as reflected on her paystubs). She can call our staff in our [redacted] office that handles her account at [redacted]. We would urge her to take care of this promptly before the garnishment order issues. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, /s/ [redacted] Corporate Counsel

To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint filed by Mr. [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 7 April 2017. Mr. [redacted] states that the negative trade line that Progressive posted on behalf of our client, Cox Communication, is “incorrect information.” He...

does not elaborate about why the information is false, however. He wants the tradeline off his credit report. Promptly upon receipt, we located the relevant account. We see that on/about 24 March 2017,Progressive received a dispute from this consumer regarding the trade line. He sent the dispute via the credit bureaus (CBR). The dispute stated that the wanted documentation about the account balance and the creditor to whom the debt is owed. We believe that Mr. [redacted] may be looking at a partial trade line(the type pushed out by “free” services such as Credit Karma). The full trade line that can be viewed by going to the bureaus directly lists the debt as owing to Cox Communication. Promptly upon receipt of his CBR dispute, our staff caused the trade line to be updated to “disputed” status. Furthermore, we are today sending out to the consumer a packet of verification of debt (VOD)documentation from Cox. The account is in a temporary VOD hold while those materials are being mailed. The account will remain on hold for several more days to give Mr. [redacted] time to receive and review the VOD that is being sent. Once he has those materials, he may contact our staff if he has further questions or wishes to take care of the balance on the account. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding Mr. [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 1 June 2015. Mr. [redacted] is disputing two collection notices he received regarding a City of Philadelphia obligation and asked for documentation regarding the details of the alleged...

obligations.Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, Progressive located the relevant accounts.  Our staff placed the accounts in a verification of debt (“VOD”) hold and requested account detail and documentation from our client to share with Mr. [redacted].  Those materials were secured and were mailed out to the consumer on 3 June 2015.  Once he has had a chance to review them, we encourage him to contact our office to discuss the accounts and answer any further questions he may have. The account will remain in a VOD hold for a few more days to allow that review and follow up to take place.We found no issues on the account review as to how the account had been worked. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

To Whom It May Concern:I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding Mr. [redacted].  We received the documentation on/about 26 June 2015.  Mr. [redacted] states that he wants his employer to be provided with an updated amount/balance due on a debt that we have in our...

office.  He requests that this information be provided so that his ongoing administrative wage garnishment (“AWG”) will be promptly terminated once his balance has been paid. I apologize that this response is a day or so tardy.  I waited as long as I did so that I could hopefully provide Mr. [redacted] some positive response.Here is what we can determine from the information that is available to Progressive: The obligation at issue here involves defaulted student loan/loans that are being held by our client, the U.S. Department of Education (“ED”).  When voluntary arrangements were not set up, ED initiated AWG with the consumer’s employer. In the course of the garnishment, there was also an offset against the consumer’s federal benefit payment that significantly reduced the balance owed on the account.At about that time, Mr. [redacted] started calling our staff so that his employer could be advised of the updated balance; he didn’t want the AWG to continue to take money beyond what was actually owed. At some point, the consumer’s employer information was changed or updated, and according to our requirements on the account, we provided that updated information to ED. For reasons we simply cannot discern, ED’s system has not captured and updated the updated employer information. Consequently, each time Progressive requested that the employer be provided with a new letter advising of the updated balance, the letter from ED went to the former employer. As of yesterday, that was still the case. We are showing several letters that Progressive requested having been sent by ED to the former employer.Mr. [redacted]’s balance is nearly resolved, and assuming there is no additional amounts added to the balance by ED, we anticipate that in fact, within a very short period of time, he will have satisfied the balance on the account. Yesterday our staff obtained a secured fax number from Mr. [redacted]’s current employer. While only ED can issue an updated balance notice to the consumer’s current employer, Progressive can, on behalf of ED, notify the employer than an AWG is to be terminated or suspended due to circumstances on the account (such as satisfaction of the balance).  Our AWG unit has this account flagged so that when the balance goes to zero, Progressive can immediately fax to his new employer a request to suspend/terminate the AWG.  Once that request is processed by his current employer, there should be no further garnishment deductions. 2We apologize that Mr. [redacted]’s reasonable request to have his employer notified of an updated balance has been so difficult to accomplish.  Our staff consistently has been responsive to his requests, but ED’s system issues caused delays that, unfortunately, Progressive was unable to resolve.  We appreciate Mr. [redacted]’s diligence and patience in following up with Progressive.Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.Sincerely,[redacted], Esq. Corporate Counsel

Re: Complaint # [redacted] Our Acct. No. [redacted] To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 15 January 2015. [redacted] states that Progressive is calling his...

phone regarding a debt that is not his. He wants to calls to stop. Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, Progressive found the account on which [redacted]’s phone number (ending in [redacted]) was called. It does not bear his name and consequently, we concluded that the calls were made to that number in error. Our records show that we left messages from time to time at that phone number. Included early in each message is a request that states, “If we have reached you in error, please call [phone number] to report the wrong number.” Notwithstanding that request – which could have put a prompt end to the calls – there were no inbound calls from [redacted] advising Progressive that we were calling his number in error. We have removed the phone number from the account on which it was called and added it to our internal “do not call” list to prevent further calls. We apologize for an inconvenience caused by our unintentional misdirected calls. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, /s/ [redacted] Corporate Counsel

I have reviewed the VOD and have also contacted the tenants that were residing in the residence.
I was told that when they switched from [redacted] to [redacted] and retained services in their name, the tenants never saw the [redacted] equipment again and stated that they think the [redacted] technician may...

have mistakenly removed the equipment. Nevertheless, I sent check in the verified amount to Progressive Financial - sent certified/receipt mail on 7/25/16. I am deeply disappointed that [redacted] did not [redacted]empt to notify me of the missing equipment before "writing it off" as a bad debt within one month. I have had an 8 year history of good credit with them at several addresses and would certainly have taken responsibility for the missing equipment, had I known. I only found this out when it was reported to the credit bureau by the Progressive Financial 2 years later. I am pleased to know that Progressive is working with [redacted] to ensure that this does not happen to other customers. They wrote off the equipment so quickly and a zero balance has been showing for 2 years. Thank you so very much for your assistance in getting to the bottom of this m[redacted]er. I am hopeful that Progressive Financial will report to the credit bureaus that the debt has been satisfied as quickly as possible once they process my payment.

Re: Complaint # [redacted]Progressive Acct. No. [redacted]/Dept. of Education Ref. No. [redacted]To Whom It May Concern:I have been asked to respond...

to the above-referenced complaint regarding Mr. [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 15 July 2015.  Mr. [redacted] is stating that he was not permitted sufficient time to dispute his wage garnishment before it went into effect.  He states that Progressive’s staff has not been responsive to his concerns.Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, Progressive located the relevant account.  Mr. [redacted] lists his address on his complaint as [redacted]. Importantly that is the address that was on the file from the inception of Progressive’s collection efforts.  Multiple collection notice letters were sent to the consumer at that address; none were returned.  He did not respond to those letters.  Nor did he respond to multiple calls from our staff to his phone number (ending in [redacted]) that were placed in February, March, and April of this year. When Progressive was unable to get this consumer on the phone to set up voluntary repayment arrangements, our client started the process to involuntarily recover the amount due via an administrative wage garnishment (AWG).The Department of Education (“ED”) mailed out a “notice prior” letter to this consumer on/about 11 May 2015 advising him of the impending AWG.  The letter was sent to the same address listed above – the address the consumer listed on his Revdex.com complaint.  Although he states he did not get that until “1 week before the process was to begin,” there appears to be no reason why he did not, at that time, promptly contact Progressive to alert us to his need to request a hearing. Had he done so, our staff would have assisted him in getting the request timely filed. Instead, the first inbound call we have from this consumer is listed on 22 June 2015 – more than 40 days after the notice prior letter from ED was mailed to him.On that call he was advised to fax relevant document to Progressive that day.  He was further told that it was his responsibility to check back with Progressive 24 hours later to see if the documents were complete or if there was anything else that needed to be sent.  Our records show that it was another week before he sent in the documents (received in our office on 6.29.15) and then he did not call Progressive until 7 July 2015.  By then, the garnishment order had been issued by ED to his employer. 2On 10 July 2015, the consumer called in again. On that call he was provided with information from which he could submit a request for a hearing directly to ED and request that the garnishment be stopped based on the fact that he was laid off from his previous job and had been working at his present employer less than a year.  Our staff assisted in getting that information to the consumer so that an “untimely” request for a hearing could be sent to ED. The staff told the consumer that the hearing process could take 30-60 days to complete and that if he was successful, the garnishment would be suspended following that hearing outcome.We did not that our staff mishandled the account at any point.  The consumer failed to respond to letters and phone calls when the account was initially place with Progressive. When the garnishment notice prior letter went out, he did not timely request a hearing and then failed to promptly get documents in when Progressive asked for those to be immediately faxed to our office. Thereafter, he neglected to call Progressive back to check on the status of the documents (they were not complete). His failure to timely respond to various requests by Progressive (written, voice mail, conversations on the phone) contributed to the fact that he did not get a timely hearing requested with ED before the garnishment order was sent to his employer.Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.Sincerely,[redacted], Esq. Corporate Counsel

Re: Complaint # [redacted] Our Acct. No.[redacted] To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 21 January 2015. [redacted] states that...

Progressive is calling his phone regarding a debt that is not his. He wants to calls to stop. Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, Progressive searched for an account on which his phone number (ending in [redacted]) had been called. Although we found evidence of inbound calls to Progressive from that number, our records showed no outbound calls to the number. The call recording from the inbound calls included discussions in which [redacted] admitted that there was likely a second number associated with his phone, but he could not identify what that second number was. Our efforts of putting the [redacted] number on our internal “do not call” list were ineffective in stopping the calls, because, as he admitted, there was another number linked to the phone that was causing it to ring. A member of my staff did some rather clever detective work from what she was able to discern about the inbound calls and with diligence and probably a little luck, she found calls to a number with the same area code at about the same time of [redacted]’s inbound calls in which he often stated, “You JUST called me.” That extraordinary effort located a likely number ([redacted]) that showed a call history very closely analogous to the times of [redacted]’s inbound calls. And, when the staff member called that number, [redacted] answered the phone. So, with the mystery solved, we put that number (ending in 0441) on the internal “do not call” list. After 21 January 2015 when we located that second number, we are showing no further calls to [redacted]. We certainly apologize for the misdirected calls to [redacted], and we regret the frustration caused by the two numbers that were ringing to his phone. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, [redacted] Corporate Counsel

I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding Ms. [redacted].  We received the complaint on/about 25 April 2014. Ms. [redacted] has a host of issues regarding (1) the fact that Progressive has an account in her name placed by our client, a student loan guarantor; and (2)...

the way in which our staff interacted with her recently.

Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, we located the relevant account. The account was placed with Progressive for collections on/about 20 April 2014 by our client, [redacted], Inc. (SLM)/NELA – the unit within SLM that handles the federally guaranteed loans held by SLM. We have confirmed that the bankruptcy she mentioned was discharged in March 2014 – before the account was placed with Progressive. Further, unless the consumer is able to make a hardship showing to the creditor, the underlying loan obligation typically would not be dischargeable in bankruptcy. Thus, we believe that the loan is due and owing as it was placed with our agency; moreover, we have confirmed that fact recently with SLM.  A copy of the promissory note and some detail sheets that we obtained from SLM are being mailed to Ms. [redacted] under separate cover. In addition, most consumers can find where their federally guaranteed student loan(s) are being worked by calling the Federal Student Loan Locator line at 800.433.3243. We believe that a call to that resource will provide Ms. [redacted] with the information she needs with regard to the location of the loan(s) that created the obligation for the account that currently is in our office.

We have also reviewed the call that Ms. [redacted] complained about.  Our agent did not follow her training and the company procedures when she insisted that Ms. [redacted] call within 24 hours when she knew that this consumer wanted to first receive our initial demand letter before she discussed the account in detail.  Since the letter file was only triggered on 21 April 2014, it was highly unlikely that Ms. [redacted] would have had the letter within 24 hours of the call. Our agent should have realized that and handled the call differently. In addition, while our client on the account can and frequently does administratively garnish the wages of consumers who have defaulted federally guaranteed student loans that are not in voluntary payment arrangements, our agent brought that topic into the conversation prematurely. We apologize that this consumer’s experience with Progressive is not what we strive for. The management for the agent involved has been notified about the complaint and the employee has been counseled regarding her behavior on the call.

At the consumer’s request, we have removed her work number from the account so that our agents will not attempt to contact her there.  Likewise, we read her complaint to withdraw permission for our collection staff to contact her at her home number (ending in[redacted]), so that number also has been removed from the account. That said, we do encourage this consumer to contact Progressive to discuss her account and provide our staff with a phone number where we can reach out to her.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,

[redacted], Esq.

Corporate Counsel

I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding Ms. [redacted].  We received the complaint on/about 31 January 2014.  Ms. [redacted] claims Progressive is “harassing” her co-workers; did not want to verify the last 4 digits of her social security number so that an agent...

could determine if the account we had belonged to her; and claims were calling her “five times a day.”  She wants Progressive “investigated” claiming “they are in violation of debt collection laws.”

Promptly upon receipt of the complaint, we located the relevant account.  Ms. [redacted]’s description of the calls to her place of employment is inaccurate and exaggerated.  We first reached the facility where she works on/about 22 January.  Without disclosing anything about the purpose of the call, the agent politely asked the woman who answered the phone who could take a message for Ms. [redacted] because the woman said Jonaye was not going to be in that day.  The agent asked for the department where Ms. [redacted] worked (so that he could ask for that department directly instead of being transferred around the next time he called).  He was pleasant throughout the call.

The next day the same agent called asking for Ms. [redacted] in cosmetics (the department that had been identified earlier).   An unidentified female picked up and told the agent again that Ms. [redacted] was not in that day.  The agent politely asked if she was scheduled to work the following day.  The woman said she did not know as she was not familiar with Ms. [redacted]’s schedule.  No message was left and the call terminated.  Again, the agent was polite throughout the call.

Finally, on 28 January 2014 – 5 days after the previous call, the agent reached Ms. [redacted] at her place of employment.  She refused to verify any information so the agent could confirm if he had the right party on the phone.  Without such verification, we are unable to discuss the purpose of the call although she persisted in demanding to know why he was calling.  When she would not give the last 4 digits of her social, the agent provided the last 4 digits on the account in front of him and asked her if those were the last 4 digits of her social security number.  She remained uncooperative and demanded that he not call her at work.  She asked why he called her at work and he explained that she wasn’t answering other numbers we had for her nor returning any messages.  There were no further calls to the employer trying to reach Ms. [redacted] after that call.

The phone number she lists on her complaint as her home phone ([redacted]) was called a number of times before we reached Ms. [redacted] at her employer on 28 January 2014.  Almost immediately after we spoke to her at her place of employment, she placed an inbound call from that number to Progressive on 28 January 20914.   She called to ask to be “taken off the list” alluding that perhaps she thought we were telemarketers.  The agent who answered again tried to get the last 4 of the social so she could verify if we had the right party, but Ms. [redacted] refused to do so. Again the agent who answered the inbound call explained that we could not disclose the purpose of the call without knowing that we had the right party named on the account.

Progressive has removed all numbers that could be associated with this consumer from the account and relevant numbers have been added to the internal “do not call” list so they won’t be called again.  Without the ability to speak with the account holder, however, Progressive will not be able to set up a repayment plan on the underlying account.  Such accounts, especially where the account holder has been verified as an employee of a particular employer (as we have done with this account), typically would move at some point to be considered by our client for involuntary administrative wage garnishment.  If this consumer wishes to avoid that possible step, she should contact an agent at Progressive to see about setting up voluntary arrangements set up on the account.

The agents involved with this account have been identified and their collection manager asked to review their activity on the account.  If any coaching or discipline is warranted, that will be done.  Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Sincerely,        

Corporate Counsel

To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the above-referenced complaint regarding [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 16 June 2016. [redacted] states that she was being contacted by Progressive about an account for Cox...

Communications that was already with another agency. She states that she resolved the account balance via a settlement with the other agency, but Progressive nevertheless reported the debt to the credit bureaus. She wants the account closed and the credit report trade line deleted. Promptly upon receipt we found the associated account for this consumer.  The account was placed with Progressive on/about 13 November 2015. Our records show that indeed [redacted] provided Progressive with proof that she had made arrangements with the other agency ([redacted]) and that she made the agreed upon payments that resulted in the account being settled in full. To make a long story short, she is correct. Cox apparently did have the account with both agencies at the same time and our personnel at multiple points in the account processing flow did not follow established procedures when she notified us about the other agency's settlement arrangement. Those oversights on our part caused the account to remain active, and eventually a trade line was reported to the credit bureaus. We have notified Cox about the error and have been advised that they have closed and recalled both accounts from the two agencies. The consumer's account is settled. Progressive recently processed a request sent to all three major credit reporting agencies to delete trade line for the account. [redacted] should contact my office directly if, after providing a few days for the credit reporting agencies to process the delete request, the trade lines are not being deleted. Our sincere apologies to [redacted] for the confusion about her account. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, Barbara A H[redacted], Esq. Corporate Counsel

Dispute Resolution Consultant [redacted] 

[redacted] 

[redacted] Re: Complaint # [redacted] Our Acct. No.[redacted] To Whom It May Concern: I have been asked to respond to the...

above-referenced complaint regarding [redacted]. We received the complaint on/about 19 November 2014. [redacted] states that she made a payment arrangement with Progressive but that now she is getting mail threatening garnishment of her wages regarding the underlying debt. She wants the garnishment process to stop and for the payment arrangement to be reinstated. Promptly upon receipt of this complaint, we located the relevant account. On/about 7 July of this year our staff made contact with [redacted]. During that call she gave the agents verbal estimates on her income. From those verbal representations, the agent told [redacted] that she was approved for a $9/month payment arrangement. The agent was very clear however, that the verbal representations needed to be backed up by pay stubs which [redacted] promised to send. The agent told [redacted] that if the income from the paperwork did not match up with the verbal representations, Progressive would need to make new payment arrangements with her based on the pay stubs. The agent reiterated that caveat no fewer than three (3) times during the call. A few days thereafter, the paystub information was sent to Progressive. As it turned out, the actual income from the paystubs was greater than what she had reported verbally. That fact dictated that new payment arrangements be set up based on the actual (not estimated) income – a payment that would be greater than the $9/month that had originally been established. Progressive made numerous attempts thereafter to reach [redacted] on the phone to arrange for an updated payment arrangement. [redacted] either did not answer the phone at all or refused to stay on the call long enough for our staff to make new payment arrangements. When [redacted] failed to set up new payment arrangements in a timely fashion, the remaining payments that had been set up on 7 July were deleted and the account fell into an “involuntary” status. The creditor on the account is permitted (as a guarantor of Federal funded student loans) to administratively garnish the consumer’s wages in order to satisfy the account. The consumer was notified of that intent and the employer’s payroll address was verified so that ________________________________________________________________________ ...⇄ wage garnishment order would be sent to the right address. Our records indicate that the notice prior letter was sent to the consumer on/about 13 November 2014 – many weeks after our staff started to try to get this consumer on the phone to set up new payment arrangements. She now has a limited time to resolve this logjam with new voluntary payment arrangements on the account based on her actual income (as reflected on her paystubs). She can call our staff in our [redacted] office that handles her account at [redacted]. We would urge her to take care of this promptly before the garnishment order issues. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. Sincerely, /s/ [redacted] Corporate Counsel

I have not received my refund in the mail as of August 15,2016. Please return my funds in the mail immediately before I file a small claims action against your business.

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and find that this resolution would be satisfactory to me.  I will wait until for the business to perform this action and, if it does, will consider this complaint resolved.

Regards,

[redacted] 871 Barnaby ST. SEWashington, DC 20032Progressive Financial Services Attention: Barbara A. H[redacted]Tempe, AZ 85285RE: Response to Revdex.com Complaint #[redacted]/ Acct.#[redacted]Dear Ms. H[redacted],Thank you for your timely response. I never stated in my validation letter that have not done business with [redacted]s but that I never done business with your company directly (see attachment) as your company is the one who is reporting on my credit report not [redacted]s. And after two requests I am just now receiving a VOD packet from your company to one of my residences in which I received on June 27th .I also never received any correspondence dated June 17th regarding how to go about filing a fraud claim with [redacted]s. In fact the VOD packet I just received dated 06-23-16 (see attachment) stated that your company will be mailing me a claim form since you could not provide me with the original agreement between me and the creditor in which I request in my validation letter. After thoroughly reviewing the VOD packet which consisted of screen shots of the account activity from [redacted] systems it does not validate that I owe your agency directly the debt in which you are reporting on my credit report. I was expecting to receive official proof of documentation from [redacted]s that they had personally assigned this account to your agency for payment. I've contacted [redacted]s again on January 29th  (twice) in reference to this account, and their Billing & Finance Dept. both times have stated that this account was written-off on 12/24/10 and the account reflects  a $0 balance. And as you can see in the document your company sent me (see attachment) which is the very last statement in the VOD packet it states the very same thing that [redacted]s had discuss with me. [redacted]s did state that your agency is 1 of 3 agencies they do work with. However, this account during its collection period was assigned to another collection agency in which [redacted] agreed at my request to send me a copy of all statements regarding this account and proof of the agency they had  assigned to this account during that time. Another thing that stood out was the timeline from when the account was closed by [redacted] and the time you stated Ms. H[redacted] that your agency was assigned the  account which was 11 months after [redacted] closed the account. In which leaves more questions regarding this account with your company.I am once again for the last time demanding for this account to be resolved and removed immediately from all three credit bureaus or I will proceed with next step according to state and federal law. As the VOD packet your company sent does not state or validate proof of documentation from [redacted]s that they assigned this account over to your agency directly to collect on their behalf. Furthermore, the documents you provided in your VOD packet clearly shows the account statement reporting as a current balance of $0 with [redacted]s.I respectfully look forward in response in resolving this matter quickly and not letting it proceed further in legal matters then what it needs to be.Thank you! Miss. [redacted]